Ghirza: Mausoleum South-A

The first photo shows the two main surviving
monuments of Ghirza's
South Cemetery, which is about two kilometer west of the town itself.
(In
front is Mausoleum A, also seen on the picture to the left.)

In Graeme
Barker e.a., Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys
Archaeological
Survey (1996), this cemetry is known as Gh128.

The South Cemetery contains the mausoleums of the other
clan in Ghirza;
because there are no inscriptions, their name is not known. Unlike the
tombs on the North
Cemetery, which looked like temples, the monuments on this
cemetery
are obelisk-shaped, a common form in Tripolitana, inspired by
Phoenician
examples.

This
monument must have looked like the ones at Sabratha,
Wadi
el-Amud, or Msletten,
or the other Msletten.
Again, we find the false door with architrave that was believed to give
access to the afterlife (as those doors did in ancient Egypt), and
again
we find a combination of artistic traditions: the columns are Roman,
but
the needle shape of the monument is not.

Unfortunately, only the lowest of three tiers has
survived, but the
bases of the columns of the second tier, which probably had the same
height
as the lowest one, have survived, so we know that it consisted of a
square
core and four columns. On the highest level, a very steep pyramid must
have pointed to heaven. It was at least fifteen meters high and must
have
been an important landmark for travelers arriving from the desert.

On top
of the Corinthian
columns was a frieze, which contained several
of the usual motifs. On this photo, we can see portraits of a woman, a
child, and a bearded man. To the right is an unidentified figure that
appears
to fly away (a soul?).

The
flying figure again. Similar figures can be seen on the ceiling of the
rock tomb of Janzur.

On the
other side of the monument, we can see a woman with an amphora,
a portrait, and two flowers.